Record number of Belgians request Catholic disaffiliation

Nearly 15,000 Belgians asked to be removed from Catholic registries last year

More than 14,000 people requested to be removed from the baptismal registers of the Catholic Church in Belgium last year, a number that almost triples the previous record, according to an annual report from the Belgian bishops.

Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, Brussels. Credit: Luc Viatour/wikimedia CC BY SA 3.0

The Church in Belgium adopted the policy of adding a note to baptismal registers in the 1990s, when it first began receiving requests for “debaptism.”

In 2023, 14,251 people made such a request.

The number usually hovers around 1,500 people a year and had previously reached a peak of 5,237 in 2021, when the Vatican’s doctrine office stated that the Catholic Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions — an unpopular statement for many Belgians.

The number of requests seems to have skyrocketed last year in part because of abuse scandals in the country, and especially the documentary series “Godvergeten” — Godforsaken — about abuse cases in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium.

The series prompted nationwide outrage when it was aired in Belgium in September last year, triggering a parliamentary inquiry and reportedly prompted a surge in Catholics leaving the Church.

While there are roughly 6 million Catholics in Belgium, fewer than 175,000 regularly attended Sunday Mass in 2022. In that year, 43,227 people were baptized in Belgium.

98% of the 2023 requests for ‘debaptism’ came from the dioceses of Flanders and the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels, according to the report — there were no “debapstism requests from the French-speaking Wallonia region.

Although no reason is asked when a person requests “debaptism,” the report indicates that many people mentioned a feeling of “disgust” at the sexual abuse crisis in the Church.

When Catholics asks to be “debaptized” in Belgium, the request is noted in the margin of the baptismal register of the parish where they were baptized, but the baptismal entry is not deleted.

This has prompted a legal battle with Belgian citizens who believe that policy violates their right to privacy and data protection.

On Dec. 19, 2023, Belgium’s Data Protection Authority required the Diocese of Ghent to comply with an unnamed person’s request to have the record of their baptism deleted. The Diocese decided to appeal the decision.

The Catholic Church teaches that “baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark of his belonging to Christ.” While a person can lapse in the practice of the faith, or even renounce it altogether, it is impossible to reverse the effects of baptism.

The Catholic Church in Belgium said that the decision raised “many legal questions” and “should be examined at the European level.”

It added that it would continue to use the current procedure of adding a note to baptismal records, as the dispute headed to the Market Court, a section of the Court of Appeal in Brussels with exclusive jurisdiction over the law relating to the Data Protection Authority.

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Pope Francis visited Belgium this year to mixed success.

Although all major events were well attended, the shadow of the abuse crisis in Belgium set the tone for the visit.

Meanwhile, his remarks about abortion and the role of women in the Church were not well received in Belgium, and were publicly criticized by the Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo.

The 2024 annual report also notes that there were 218 complaints of sexual abuse in Belgium, which is five times the amount of last year, which had 47 reports. The report states that most of these complaints took place between the 50s and 70s, which might be another consequence of the documentary series Godvergeten.

Aside from a parliamentary inquiry and the increase of ‘debaptisms,’ the documentary series also led to calls for Belgium’s federal authorities to cease paying the salaries of people designated as “ministers of religion,” who include not only the country’s Catholic priests and deacons but also lay people nominated by bishops.

The series stirred up debate about previous high-profile abuse cases, notably that of Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges, who resigned in 2010 after admitting to molesting his nephew.

The scandal also tarnished Cardinal Godfried Danneels’, then archbishop emeritus of Mechelen-Brussels, reputation after an audio recording was leaked in which the cardinal urged the young man not to publicly accuse his uncle — and led to controversy when Francis included Danneels in his list of personal invitees to the 2015 family synod.

As the crisis deepened, police launched surprise raids on church premises, straining relations between the Belgian authorities and the Vatican.

Following Vangheluwe’s resignation, an independent report recorded 475 abuse complaints against clergy and church workers from the 1950s to the 1980s.

The Vangheluwe case overshadowed the Belgian Church because he continued to have the title of bishop until his laicization in March 2024, 14 years after his resignation.

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The annual report also shows a significant decrease in the number of people requesting the sacraments.

There were 34,826 baptisms, including 260 adult baptisms, 33,853 first communions, 5,241 marriages, 37,207 funerals, and 29,580 confirmations in 2023.

Most of these numbers are significantly lower than the ones in 2022.

There were 43,327 baptisms in 2022, almost 9,000 more than in 2023. There were 6,947 marriages in 2022, but 5,241 in 2023. The number of diocesan priests also fell from 1,859 to 1,764, and the number of religious priests fell from 1,723 to 1,677.

However, the report also includes the number of adult baptisms so far in 2024, as it has almost doubled in a decade from 186 in 2014 to 364 this year.